The Great Tree of Avalon (33 page)

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The Lady Revealed

Tamwyn, puzzled, turned to Elli. “You know who the Lady really is?”

But Elli just ignored him. A shaft of starlight from one of the knotholes in the tree fell across her face, making her hazel eyes shine. And they seemed to be shining for another reason, as well. They were peering straight at the Lady of the Lake.

The silver-haired woman considered Elli for a long moment, playing with the frills on her thick shawl. At last, with a gentle smile, she said, “You are right, my dear. I can tell. And you are the first person in many centuries to guess my true identity.”

Tamwyn looked from one to the other. Finally, he blurted out, “But
I
don’t know who you are! Can’t you tell me?”

The Lady gave Elli a sly wink. “Shall we?”

“I suppose so. If we make him try to guess, we could be here for years.”

His eyes narrowed, but he kept his attention on the older woman. “So tell me, then. Who are you?”

The Lady of the Lake said simply, “In times long past, I was called Rhiannon.”

As he’d done once before, Tamwyn nearly fell off his chair. “You’re
who?
”

“Rhia,” she declared with a playful toss of her curls. “Still alive after all these years! After all, I have wizard’s blood in my veins—no less than my brother.”

She laughed, and the glittering walls rang with the sound. “And I have something else, something my brother had only briefly.” In one graceful motion, she dropped her shawl. There, upon her back, were a pair of luminous wings! Although they sprang from her body, just behind her shoulders, these wings were not made of flesh and bone, but of a substance more ephemeral . . . like starlight. Hundreds of shining feathers sparkled with even the slightest movement of the wings.

Elli beamed. “No wonder you decided to live in a tree!”

“Yes, yes, my dear. A tree made of mist. I made it in the image of Arbassa, my great oaken home for so many years in Druma Wood.”

Tamwyn turned to Elli. “That’s fabulous you figured it out.”

She smiled at him—the first genuine smile she’d ever given him—and burst into her own lilting laugh. “That’s not all I figured out.”

Tamwyn tilted his head, unsure what she meant.

Elli just grinned at him. “I know who was Rhia’s maryth.”

Tamwyn’s eyes opened wide. “Not—”

“Hmmmpff,” grumbled Nuic. “Took you long enough.”

“You mean,” Tamwyn asked incredulously, “you were . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“You went . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“You are . . . ?”

“Yes, you knot-headed, swamp-brained dolt!”

The Lady reached out and touched a finger to the sprite’s tuft of green hair. “Now, Nuic. That’s enough expressions of affection, don’t you think?”

“Hmmmpff. Just my affectionate nature, that’s all.”

He turned to Elli. “Don’t get overconfident, now. Just because you made a couple lucky guesses.”

Elli couldn’t help but grin.

“And don’t think it was just an accident, either, that I came to the compound at the same time you did.”

She blushed. “You mean . . .”

“I knew you’d be arriving there,” explained the Lady. “Just as I knew you’d be needing a maryth. Preferably one I could trust.”

The old sprite’s colors shifted to a proud shade of violet.

“Especially since,” the enchantress continued, “I hoped that one day I might welcome you here. That is something I’ve never done before, you know.”

Elli’s blush deepened. The two women, one very old and one quite young, gazed at each other for a timeless moment.

Abruptly, Tamwyn turned to the Lady of the Lake—Rhia. “A while ago I asked you who was the true heir of Merlin. Is it, maybe . . . you?”

“No, my dear. It’s not.” She ruffled her shining wings. “But I can help you find out who it is—if you really want to know.”

He shifted his weight uneasily. “I do.”

“Then first, let me show you something else, so you’ll understand just why Merlin’s heir has never been more needed than now.”

With that, she reached into the leaves of her amulet. She plucked out the sparkling crystal and held it in her open palm. It seemed to pulse with light in her hand, much as the legendary magic seed of Avalon had pulsed like a beating heart.

Then, gazing into the crystal, she said:

Crystal blue and green so deep,
Wake from ancient restless sleep.
Show us now yon evil deed;
Guide us to what hope we need.

The crystal flashed in Rhia’s hand. All of a sudden, it seemed to swell, becoming a misty sphere as big as her own head. Within the sphere, clouds swirled, expanded, and disappeared. The vapors moved with an energy, perhaps a mind, of their own.

Gradually, an image started to form within the sphere. It was a wide redrock canyon... with a great fountain of water spouting in the distance. The Canyon of Crystillia! Down the middle of the canyon flowed a white river, raging and pounding toward a narrow gorge—Prism Gorge. Suddenly the image changed: The river was gone. In its place, a white lake filled the canyon to its brim. Below the gorge, no water flowed, while the color had faded from the rocks. And across the gorge stood a great stone dam, half covered with scaffolding.

“The white lake we saw!” exclaimed Tamwyn. “So that’s how—”

The next image within the sphere shocked him into speechlessness. Along the canyon rim, a whole great swath of forest had been slashed to death. Where tall trees once stood and many creatures lived . . . there remained nothing but torn roots, broken branches, and wasted stumps.

“Who did this?” demanded Elli angrily. “Who built that dam?”

The sphere clouded darkly, then revealed a hooded, cloaked figure standing in the shadows of a stone tower. His hands, whiter than mist, gestured, and some men cracked whips against a group of oxen, horses, deer, and dwarves, who were straining to pull huge blocks of stone out of a mining pit. The slaves—for they were clearly that—toiled to haul the stones down the canyon to a barge on the white lake. There, more slaves loaded the vessel—although one young doe fell into the water, was dragged under the barge, and drowned.

Elli shuddered. Tamwyn, instinctively, touched her shoulder, but she shook him off. In a hoarse voice, she whispered, “I know what it’s like to be a slave.”

Then she asked Rhia, “That slave master . . . is that the child of the Dark Prophecy? The one who could bring the end of Avalon?”

“No, my dear. The prophesied child is someone else.”

Tamwyn lowered his gaze.

“But that slave master,” Rhia continued, “is someone of considerable power. I can feel it clearly. And he uses his power only for wicked sorcery.”

She focused again on the misty sphere. “Tell us one thing more. What does the sorcerer with the white hands need to triumph?”

A new image filled the sphere. It was a shaft of wood, gnarled and twisted. A walking stick. It lay against a wall of rock—perhaps a cave.

“The staff of Merlin,” said Tamwyn. He shook his head so that his long black hair swished across his shoulders. “At last . . . I see it for what it really is.”

Rhia nodded, even as the misty ball started to shrink back down in her palm. “You have seen it before, then?”

“I have.” He swallowed. “For many years.”

Elli looked at him with surprise.

Rhia’s hand closed over the crystal, and she replaced it in her amulet of leaves. “And can you tell me why the sorcerer wants it?”

“Of course,” said Tamwyn, putting it all together. “He didn’t build that dam for the water—though that must be why there’s been less water in the regions fed by the white river, and also less color. No, he built that dam for what was
in
the water. For the élano.”

She nodded gravely. “Unable to find this pure crystal, and unable to find Merlin’s underground lake, he decided to build his own.”

“With slaves,” spat Elli.

“With slaves. And ghoulacas. And whatever trees or stones he needed. All he lacks now is the staff.”

“But,” questioned Tamwyn, “why does he want to make a crystal of élano? What will he do with it?”

Rhia frowned. “No one knows, except the sorcerer himself. And, I suspect, his lord Rhita Gawr.”

“He doesn’t want to grow things, I’ll wager. That’s not Rhita Gawr’s way.”

“He must have some other plan,” said Elli. “Some other way to use its power.”

“By the Thousand Groves . . .” muttered Tamwyn. “What could it be?”

“Some form of evil,” Rhia answered. Her face then relaxed slightly. “By the way, do you have any idea what the phrase the
Thousand Groves
really means?”

Uncertainly, Tamwyn said, “No.”

A strange gleam shone in her eyes. “One day, perhaps, you will.”

“Hmmmpff,” growled Nuic. “And perhaps he won’t, if he can’t take ten steps without tripping over himself.”

Even Tamwyn couldn’t resist a grin. “How long did you put up with him as your maryth?”

“Not long,” said Rhia with a shrug. “Just a few centuries.” Abruptly, her face grew grim. “But we don’t have that much time left now. Not nearly.” She glanced upward, as if she could see the stars beyond the glistening walls of the tree. “There are now only three stars left in the Wizard’s Staff.”

Elli and Tamwyn both stiffened. Then Tamwyn asked, “What exactly does that constellation have to do with all this? I mean, how is that wizard’s staff connected to the other one, the one here in Avalon?”

Rhia pinched her lips together. “They are connected, I can assure you. And in a way you’d find most surprising! But this isn’t the time to talk about it. For now, all you need to know is that, when the last star disappears, so will all our hopes.”

She took both of them by the hand. “To prevail, you must do something very, very difficult.”

“Free those slaves!” cried Elli. “We must do that.”

“Yes, that you must. But first, you must do something else. You must find the staff.”

“
Find the staff of Merlin true
,” quoted Elli, recalling the words that Coerria had taught her.

Rhia nodded in agreement, making her wings shimmer. “And in the process, you shall find the true heir of Merlin, who alone can use it.”

“If you succeed,” muttered Nuic, his colors darkening to nearly black.

“I know who is the true heir,” declared Tamwyn. He fell to one knee before the Lady. “Scree! My adopted brother. We grew up together, those years in Fireroot. And he always carried the staff, everywhere he went, even when he flew as an eagleman.” He ran a hand through his hair. “He never let me touch the staff. Not even once! Now I know why.”

Elli, her voice soft, asked, “Is he . . . the person you’ve been searching for?”

“Yes. But when I lost him—when ghoulacas attacked us—we jumped into a portal together. And got separated! We both landed in Stoneroot, I’m sure of that. But hard as I’ve tried, I haven’t found him.”

“Hmmmpff,” said the old sprite. “That’s because he’s still in Fireroot.”

Shocked, Tamwyn stared at him. “You
know
that? How?”

“Do you think I was born just yesterday?” Nuic’s purple eyes scrutinized him. “I’ve spent centuries in the mountains watching other creatures—including eaglefolk. Whenever they’re attacked and pursued, their first instinct is to protect whoever else is with them. Their child . . . or their kin.”

“That sounds like Scree, all right. But what makes you think he’s still in Fireroot?”

“Because one of eaglefolk’s best tricks, to shake off pursuers, is to double back. That way, the eagelman draws the pursuers to himself, and the kin—”

“Can escape unharmed,” finished Tamwyn. “So Scree must have faced the ghoulacas all by himself.”

“Not necessarily, you dolt.” Nuic’s color shifted to a slightly brighter tone. “Portals are especially difficult for pursuers . . . even ones a lot smarter than ghoulacas. They could easily have lost you both in there. And since they probably didn’t have the brains to guess that he doubled back, your brother could have eluded them completely. He could be sitting there in Fireroot right now, polishing his talons.”

“And wondering where in Avalon I am.” Tamwyn turned to Elli, his face grim. “If he’s right, you need to go to Fireroot. That’s where you’ll find the staff. And the true heir of Merlin.”

She looked at him, taken aback. “You’re . . . not coming?”

“No,” he replied, lowering his gaze to the floor of hardened mist. “I’m not.”

“Why?”

He pointed at Rhia. “She knows. She can tell you.”

“No, Tamwyn,” said the elder woman, watching him closely. “You explain.”

He swallowed hard. “Because . . . I am . . . the child of the Dark Prophecy.”

Elli literally jumped off her chair. “You?”

“Me. Scree’s brother. Who brings disaster wherever he goes.” He drew a long breath. “Now I know why my mother named me Dark Flame.” Then, facing Rhia squarely, he declared: “If your Prophecy is really true, then you should kill me right now.”

Suddenly Elli recalled her promise to Coerria.
You must break the Drumadians’ first law.
That’s what the High Priestess had commanded.
Kill the Dark one.

Could Coerria have been right? Just kill him, here and now? Elli peered at Tamwyn’s dagger—so near, so easy to reach. Her fingers twitched.

Uncertainly, she glanced over at Nuic. He shot her a strange, anxious look, his eyes alight.

Then she looked back at Tamwyn—and saw him, it seemed, for the very first time. She thought about her solemn promise. And she knew that she would never keep it. Her fingers relaxed.

Nuic turned a warm shade of yellow.

“Now, wait a moment,” Elli said firmly to Tamwyn. “You may be the clumsiest, stupidest, stubbornest man I’ve ever met. But the great force of doom? I don’t believe it.”

He made a wry grin. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She grimaced. “Don’t get used to it.”

Rhia then took Tamwyn’s arm. “There are some things you must know, my dear. First of all, I will not kill you. Nor will Elli, or Nuic.”

“Tempting as the idea may be,” muttered the sprite, with a wink at Elli.

“But . . . the Prophecy! My destiny!”